As She Ponders Presidential Run, AOC: I Am Considered “Extreme” Because…

She turns just 37 next week, not that long ago a girl from The Bronx standing behind a bar slinging suds to help pay the surging family medical bills, managing degrees in economics and international relations at Boston University that saddled her with enormous student debt, then did the unthinkable, upsetting an entrenched Democrat in a party primary covering a congressional district in The Bronx and Queens, and now enterprising political provocateur Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes is trekking across the United States campaigning for progressives looking to power wash the political map generationally.

“We are here to break the map.”

Donald Trump’s bottom-of-the-septic-tank polling numbers have poised Democrats to take over both the House and Senate to return checks on the executive branch. Even some Republicans running for cover when they once kneeled at the throne.

AOC is pondering a decision for 2028, a puncher’s chance for the presidency, in a large Democratic field or lancing U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer in a primary?

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People have said this to her and that to her about her future but the reality of politics is you take your shot when it avails.

“There’s an argument that some make that this is a very unique political window and, oftentimes in politics, you do only get one shot,” she told The Times last month, adding: “Life doesn’t wait for you to be ready for things. Sometimes life just makes things ready for you.”

The Democratic National Committee has fashioned a presidential primary calendar, Iowa caucus no longer first, more reflective of the party base.

• South Carolina, January 22, 2028
• Nevada, February 1, 2028
• New Hampshire, February 8, 2028
• New Mexico, February 15, 2028
• Michigan, February 22, 2028
• Virginia, February 29, 2028

The above is just 15-16 months away. That means full throttle positioning early next year.

Black-voting rich South Carolina, that rescued Joe Biden from poor, early presidential primary performances in 2020, comes first. Then Nevada, followed closely by New Mexico both teeming with Hispanic voters.

Meanwhile AOC makes her case and tries to reframe how she is viewed. Her latest eblast:

Here’s a question I get a lot: “Why are you considered to be extreme?”

I am considered “extreme” because:

– I believe in Medicare for All, aka guaranteed healthcare in the United States.

– I authored the Green New Deal, and believe tackling the climate crisis will take a much more massive and serious mobilization than what we’re doing now.

– Although I am a Democrat, I operate independently from either party’s establishment. So I am willing to challenge my own party’s leadership and, when necessary, break from the party line.

– I do not believe in late stage capitalism or that prioritizing the extreme pursuit of profit at any and all human/environmental costs will save us. I believe in cooperative economics and cooperative democracy, aka democratic socialism.

– My campaign is funded by grassroots, small-dollar donations and I accept $0 in corporate money (the average donation to keep me in office is around $16).

– I believe that ICE, an agency that was just formed in 2003 during the Patriot Act era, is a rogue agency that should not exist.

– I am the youngest woman in U.S. history to be elected to Congress. I was a waitress. I am Latina. I come from a low income background and am one of just a few working class people who got elected to Congress. That makes a lot of classist, ageist, misogynist, and racist people mad.

People like to lie about and caricature me a lot, which makes folks believe all sorts of things that aren’t true!